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How Asia's biggest slum contained the coronavirus

Soutik Biswas

June 23, 2020 |

BBC |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: India, Mumbai

In Mumbai’s famous Dharavi slum, the impracticality of social distancing has been overcome with an intensive community response to bring an earlier COVID-19 outbreak under control through the use of “fever camps” and intensive screening and quarantines. The aggressive testing and tracing to isolate infected people centers on camps where hundreds of thousands have been screened. Free food for an out-of-work population has served as a draw, with slum residents eagerly volunteering for screening in order to gain access to food and other services. As a result, the virus' spread was greatly slowed.

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Defund police? Some cities have already started, investing in mental health instead

Lindsay Schnell

June 22, 2020 |

USA Today |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Denver, Colorado

Less than one month into its use of a crisis intervention team to handle mental health calls in place of the police, Denver’s one-year STAR pilot project has been flooded with calls and already has achieved success in cases where police presence could have been a hindrance. Like many cities modeling new programs on the successful, long-running CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon, Denver is making “defund the police” a reality with investments in mental health services. Empathic dialog in place of a police presence can lead to peaceful outcomes for people of color afraid of police.

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Two Countries Dismantled Their Police to Start Fresh. It Worked—Up to a Point.

Yaroslav Trofimov

June 13, 2020 |

Wall Street Journal |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Ukraine

Georgia and Ukraine offer cautionary advice to Americans whose mass protests seek structural changes in policing, even abolishing entire police forces. The same was true in those two countries. But, in both cases, initial successes at replacing corrupt police forces ended up reversed or at least limited by backsliding, as other parts of government and society resisted the changes.

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The City that Really Did Abolish the Police

Katherine Landergan

June 12, 2020 |

Politico |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Camden, New Jersey

A decade after Camden crime and police relations hit bottom, and five years after President Obama lauded its new police department as a model for reform, the city's successful reboot of its police force offers both encouragement and cautionary notes for a radical makeover of a police department. Excessive force rates and homicides have both dropped. A toothless disciplinary system has been replaced. But, while residents agree conditions have improved, they point to a number of changes still needed after the entire department was replaced.

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Promotoras: A community model with heart — and teeth

Alyssa Biederman

June 10, 2020 |

Generocity |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Promotoras is a model used in Latin America since the 1950s, where respected community members perform health outreach and host events to answer questions about healthcare access and treatments. The program seeks to ensure that Latinx communities are not prevented from receiving quality healthcare because of traditional obstacles such as distrust, lack of transportation, lack of insurance, or language barriers. Research and surveys consistently show that this model achieves success by improving access to health services for the majority of people they interact with.

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This city disbanded its police department 7 years ago. Here's what happened next

Scottie Andrew

June 09, 2020 |

CNN |

Multi-Media |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Camden, New Jersey

Camden, New Jersey, is far smaller and more racially diverse than Minneapolis, but its decision to dissolve and reconstitute its police department may be the most apt case study if the larger city follows through on plans to reboot its policing. Camden decided in 2012 its department was beyond fixing, and its crime too severe to accept the status quo. A new countywide force has embraced community-oriented policing, de-escalation tactics, and limits on the use of force. Violence has dropped by nearly half and public support is up, although Camden's continuing problems also serve as a warning for Minneapolis.

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Navajo community health reps play key role in contact tracing

Elise Kaplan

June 06, 2020 |

Albuquerque Journal |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Navajo Nation, Arizona

The Community Health Representative Program has been helping connect the Navajo Nation with health-care resources for decades, but when the Covid-19 pandemic began to impact community members, the role of the representatives shifted. By "using their knowledge of the community in a different way," the representatives have largely become contact tracers, a role they are uniquely suited for given their understanding of the importance of cultural competency and their longevity in the community.

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The City That Remade Its Police Department

Sarah Holder

June 04, 2020 |

Bloomberg Businessweek |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Camden, New Jersey

Since Camden began addressing its high homicide rate in 2012 with closer collaboration with the community and stricter rules on the use of force, both murders and complaints about police have fallen dramatically. As part of what is considered some of the most extensive police reforms in the country, the city put more police on the streets. That had both good outcomes (interactions outside of crises) and bad (a troubling increase in low-level arrests). But, when many cities’ police-brutality protests in 2020 turned violent, Camden’s did not.

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Why So Many Police Are Handling the Protests Wrong

Jamiles Lartey Maggie Koerth

June 01, 2020 |

The Marshall Project |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Half a century of research showing the dynamics of how protesters and police interact under pressure teaches that when police respond with escalating force, it doesn’t work. But police continue to lean on such tactics out of instinct and culture, even in the face of strong evidence that they often instigate the very riots they ostensibly seek to prevent. Defusing tension is no simple matter, and officer safety concerns are often legitimate. But much can be learned from common mistakes and from some model strategies that have been deployed successfully.

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Thousands of Complaints Do Little to Change Police Ways

Shaila Dewan Serge Kovaleski

May 30, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Derek Chauvin's journey through the Minneapolis Police Department’s officer-disciplinary system illustrates the weaknesses of that system and the failure of efforts to fix it. Chauvin, the officer charged in the death of George Floyd, survived at least 17 misconduct complaints before he was fired for killing Floyd by kneeling on his neck. Critics charge the department never complied with recommendations by federal analysts to improve the tracking and disciplining of problem officers. That and other administrative failures are coupled with political and cultural barriers to neuter many reform ideas.

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